 older farmers so I was pretty amazed when I got there and they showed me here he's got this video communication system at his center and people are sitting there and linked out to villages and are passing information and doing amazing extension work through the most modern technology so Dr. MS Swaminathan is clearly new school in leading this effort so it's my great pleasure to welcome the chair of the next panel Dr. MS Swaminathan. Thank you very much Ambassador, as already announced this particular conversation is about the role of small farmers, farm women and men in the conservation and sustainable use of bio-diversity. As Ambassador Quinn said this year 2010 has been recognized as an international year of bio-diversity by the UN system and I think shortly there's a meeting in Nagoya in Japan I think this week to review what has been done in terms of conservation and sustainable use of bio-diversity. This is particularly appropriate to link this with the board-law dialogue because I think more than any other front-bed agriculture scientists and the world leader Norman Board-Law recognizes the importance of genetic diversity in fact all the success of his work was based upon a fundamental principle. Genetic homogeneity, genetic homogeneity enhances genetic vulnerability to pests and diseases based on this concept he wanted to have genetic heterogeneity not homogeneity in his varieties so he brought about the pyramiding of genes from diverse sources whether it was winter wheat or spring wheat all of them are together and that's one of the reasons why most of the varieties he bred were not only capable of using solar energy, nutrients and water more efficiently but also were resistant to a broad spectrum of diseases and pests. In fact the last year even last year one of his last conferences was to fight the UG-99 race of stem rust he was very concerned the stem rust he has seen that in his younger days what kind of damage can be caused to crops by rust diseases therefore he decided that he should alert the whole scientific world political world on the dangers of new races of rust and just as UG-99 so I think it's on this occasion I hope we can again look back and see what we should do to conserve biodiversity and use it sustainably and effectively. If you look at small boulders and sustainability, sustainable agriculture one of the very important methods by which they could ensure sustainability of agriculture was by genetic heterogeneity bringing a number of varieties mixed cropping large number of varieties grown what we now call land races over 150,000 land races of rice varieties are available and of them more than 100,000 are in the chain bank of the International Rice Research Institute. Farmers have always valued diversity they are the great conservators in the broad world of biodiversity if you take agro biodiversity economically important crops and so on. Agro diversity is the product of interaction between biodiversity and cultural diversity at one hand and biodiversity and culinary diversity under hand the way in which we use the grains very large number if you read the books written by Noel Bietme who is a biographer of Northern Bordelog the last crops of the Incas the last crops of Africa and so on you will see what a wide range of crops on which the local food security as well as the health security that is medicinal plants both were really built on a wide very great diversity gradually with the market oriented agriculture we have been compressing the basket hardly four five six crops today are important there were several hundred crops in the past but one more thing which is happening now with the climate change it is now being recognized the climate resilient agriculture has to be built on the foundation of biodiversity it has to be genetic diversity so the chain banks from a warming planet have once again attracted considerable attention. Bordelog let me also say even when we were in the late 60s we were discussing about the underutilized crops and he encouraged the formation of an international council for underutilized crops one Lazarov was the first director unfortunately didn't receive that kind of support but I went mentioning the importance of a wide grain Bordelog was always interested in diversifying the food habits bringing in large number of local grains and so on and that the kind of work now is fortunately receiving more attention now in the case of small farmers is largely mostly women have been the great conservators from the time over 12,000 years ago the transformation took place from purely food gathering to food growing you find a very great contribution in the selection of variety the selection of species were all done by women where we work in my own center which Ambassador Quinn visited the seminar but where we work in the interior parts of India what are called sometimes tribal areas you may call indigenous people you find an almost work which is being done by those people local people to conserve biodiversity for example one group of workers mainly women who developed a system of community conservation of biodiversity through gene banks in C2 on form conservation in other words the land races kind of cryogenic is only preservation but on form conservation is evolution plus preservation and that is different they have constructed gene banks seed banks grain banks and water banks this received the equity initiative award at Reody at Reody genital and also later on at bonus artists these people are on it similarly they have always considered to be biodiversity as there are line in sustainable agriculture whenever there is drought and other floods the large number of varieties help them in order to save something at least it was obtained and this kind of conservation efforts will have to revitalize now for promoting a climate resilient agriculture but we are sure to do something to recognize and reward these farmers there is no use in seeing small farmers of the custodians of genetic diversity but they also require some recognition and reward this is why both the global biodiversity convention as well as the FAO treaty on farmers rights have specially made suggestions how people should recognize and reward the conservation traditions of local communities of small farmers in India we have what we call a genome savior award for those farm families and communities who have been able to conserve land races of various variety these kinds of steps are needed for what the local people themselves have called in the play one of the places where we work it is called by botanists and by biodiversity experts as a hot spot as agro-biodiversity or biodiversity hotspot the area in Orissa but what the woman have done there is they decided to form a society local name can be converted to English as bio happiness society and the purpose of the bio happiness society is to ensure the conservation sustainable use and equitable sharing of benefits of biodiversity in other words they finally say the bio happiness society will convert a hotspot into a happy spot and today we are now going to hear from our panelists how to convert the biodiversity hotspots into happy spots and thereby ensure sustainable food security for all I have great pleasure